Teachers in Rhode Island currently maintain their certification by showing evidence of continuous professional development. Creating a personal PD plan is a unit-wide assignment in the School of Education for all student teachers. The steps below are designed to guide you through this process so that we can complete it efficiently.
Complete the form based on one of the lessons you taught last week. Be sure to write down specific evidence from either your lesson plan or your memory of your enactment for each assessment you give.
Use a highlighter to identify areas of your teaching/lesson that were either below standard or that you feel needs improvement
Synthesize your review by completing the following table as best your can:
What is the need?
How will improvement help your students?
How will improvement help your school?
RIBT Standard/Element Addressed?
1.
Connections to Real Life
Students will be able to relate to content and understand it on a deeper level.
This will achieve the school improvement goal of differentiated instruction. Providing examples and experiences of content will help students see material in a different view and might meet their individual needs.
RIBT 1.1, 1.2, 4.2
2.
Interdisciplinary Teams
Students will stay actively involved in one topic in each of their classes. This will help to keep them interested and engaged in the material, as well as participate in projects and activities that they may not have been able to otherwise.
This will work towards the school's improvement goal to co-teach. Teachers will be able to collaborate with one another along with special education teachers to improve students' performance in reading, writing, and math.
RIBT 1.2, 2
3.
Differentiated Instruction
Using a variety of instructional materials to explain a topic will meet the needs of all students. Their individual talents and abilities are addressed and each student is given an equal opportunity to learn the material.
The school has a goal of differentiated instruction within classrooms. Differentiating instruction will create a common language throughout the school and ultimately improve student performance in each classroom.
RIBT 2.4, 2.5, 4.1, 4.4
4.
Classroom Management
When students see a consistent behavioral system, they know exactly what the consequences of their actions are going to be and most likely deter them from acting out at school. When students are behaving well and following directions, they have a better opportunity to learn in the classroom.
The school has a goal of implementing PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention Support). If all teachers are practicing this system, students will see consistency.
RIBT 6
Formulate a professional development goal based the needs that you have identified. This goal should be:
measurable/observable
should lead to improvement of teaching, student achievement, and/or improvement of learning environment.
should describe new knowledge or skills that you will acquire and how that knowledge/skill will affect the school/district setting.
linked to applicable Rhode Island Beginning Teacher Standards and elements, e.g. RIBTS 2.4.
In the space below, describe your professional development goal. In a second paragraph, use the information above to provide a rationale for your goal by explaining the personal need that it will address as well as how addressing this goal benefits your students and your school.
I. Professional Development Goal
One goal I have for professional development is to become more knowledgeable about the concept of creating interdisciplinary units. Interdisciplinary units involve all or most subject area teachers collaborating together to create lessons that go along with a common theme. I would like to become more familiar with how a unit like this should be implemented and assessed.
There are many benefits of using interdisciplinary units in schools. First, it causes teachers to collaborate with eachother and pool together all of their great ideas. Second, the students have an opportunity to learn about a topic more indepth than they would have if it was just taught in one subject. It keeps students interested and engaged in the material since they see it multiple times a day. Interdisciplinary units can be project-based so that students will have a product at the end of the unit that they can share with peers or parents. These types of units force students to make connections across disciplines and relate the information to their own lives. It also makes the content material seem more important and worthwhile to learn if students are seeing it in each of their classes. When teachers and students are all working together toward a common goal, it creates enthusiasm which will ultimately affect the whole school environment.
Now that you have a PD goal, think about what type of learning opportunities you will participate in to address your needs. Use these links to investigate learning options:
Based on what you have found out, write a 1-2 paragraph narrative outlining at least two ways (PD categories) you will engage in engage in by the end of your first year of teaching. For each activity, explain how you think it will address the need that you have identified.
II. Professional Development Plan
The first way I can reach my goal of becoming more knowledgeable about interdisciplinary units is to attend workshops, conferences, or trainings that focus on the topic of interdisciplinary learning. Here, I will be able to get questions answered, learn new skills for lesson planning across content areas, speak with colleagues about what has been successful in the past, and more.
Another way I can reach my goal by the end of my first year of teaching is to become involved with development work. I can work with colleagues to create interdisciplinary units and assessments that can be used in classrooms anywhere. Development work also includes designing a workshop for colleagues in order to teach them about the benefits of interdisciplinary units and encourage them to use them within their classes. This way, I am involved in the actual process of designing units and implementing them.
These are both general ways that I can engage in professional development. I will be able to choose more specific opportunities as they come up.
EDC 484 Personal PD Plan
Teachers in Rhode Island currently maintain their certification by showing evidence of continuous professional development. Creating a personal PD plan is a unit-wide assignment in the School of Education for all student teachers. The steps below are designed to guide you through this process so that we can complete it efficiently.Formulate a professional development goal based the needs that you have identified. This goal should be:
In the space below, describe your professional development goal. In a second paragraph, use the information above to provide a rationale for your goal by explaining the personal need that it will address as well as how addressing this goal benefits your students and your school.
I. Professional Development Goal
One goal I have for professional development is to become more knowledgeable about the concept of creating interdisciplinary units. Interdisciplinary units involve all or most subject area teachers collaborating together to create lessons that go along with a common theme. I would like to become more familiar with how a unit like this should be implemented and assessed.
There are many benefits of using interdisciplinary units in schools. First, it causes teachers to collaborate with eachother and pool together all of their great ideas. Second, the students have an opportunity to learn about a topic more indepth than they would have if it was just taught in one subject. It keeps students interested and engaged in the material since they see it multiple times a day. Interdisciplinary units can be project-based so that students will have a product at the end of the unit that they can share with peers or parents. These types of units force students to make connections across disciplines and relate the information to their own lives. It also makes the content material seem more important and worthwhile to learn if students are seeing it in each of their classes. When teachers and students are all working together toward a common goal, it creates enthusiasm which will ultimately affect the whole school environment.
Based on what you have found out, write a 1-2 paragraph narrative outlining at least two ways (PD categories) you will engage in engage in by the end of your first year of teaching. For each activity, explain how you think it will address the need that you have identified.
II. Professional Development Plan
The first way I can reach my goal of becoming more knowledgeable about interdisciplinary units is to attend workshops, conferences, or trainings that focus on the topic of interdisciplinary learning. Here, I will be able to get questions answered, learn new skills for lesson planning across content areas, speak with colleagues about what has been successful in the past, and more.
Another way I can reach my goal by the end of my first year of teaching is to become involved with development work. I can work with colleagues to create interdisciplinary units and assessments that can be used in classrooms anywhere. Development work also includes designing a workshop for colleagues in order to teach them about the benefits of interdisciplinary units and encourage them to use them within their classes. This way, I am involved in the actual process of designing units and implementing them.
These are both general ways that I can engage in professional development. I will be able to choose more specific opportunities as they come up.